Violence and America's Troubled Youth

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Recommended: Advantage of video games

Video games have come a long way since the days of Pong. Advances in technology have allowed games to present state of the art graphics and surreal like qualities to its consumers; from four star simulated battle scenes to enhanced real live fire shoot outs. With all these innovations added to violent video games it attracted the visual needs of our teenage youth. Although video game violence has been blamed for high profile school shootings, video games and its creators should not be held accountable for these tragedies because there is not enough credible evidence to absolutely link video games to outburst of violence amongst juveniles.
Video games have made a killing in the world of entertainment, it is a multibillion dollar industry. Games like Call of Duty, God of War and Grand Theft Auto contribute to this segments popularity targeting energy drink filled teens and college students alike. Video games involving violent content have often been referred to as “murder simulators” and are constantly blamed for poisoning the minds of the youth and causing them to revolt and lash out. Video games are used as a scapegoat for the Medias reasoning behind high profile school shootings like Columbine and the most recent Sandy Hook case. School shootings are a rarity and do not occur often enough to make that an accurate claim, history has proved their timing to be sporadic. Trying to peg a motive for a “typical shooter” is a difficult task given these circumstances, the only fact known to most officials investigating these cases are all or most suspects played video games. This one factor has caused a public outcry for stricter regulations and censorship of media content. “When there’s violence in the streets, the cry becomes ‘blame ...

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... actual acts of violence; alone it is not the only cause. Parents need to be aware of the inherent risks video game violence and media content in general presents on their teens but it shouldn’t be the sole reasoning of why high profile shootings occur.

Works Cited
Ackley, Katherine Anne. Ed. Perspectives on Contemporary Issues: Readings Across the Disciplines. 5th ed. Boston: Wadsworth. Cengage Learning. 2009. Print.
Sternheimer, Karen. “Do Video Games Kill?” (Ackley 204-210)
Thompson, Clive. “You Grew Up Playing Shoot ‘em-Up Games. Why Can’t Your Kids?” Wired.com. “N.p”, 9 Apr.2007. Web. 26 Feb.2014
Walsh, David. “Video Game Violence and Public Policy.” The Digest (2001):n.pag Web. 7 Jan.2007.
"Videogames under fire, Hollywood lays low after school shooting." Reuters. Issues & Controversies. Facts on File News Services, 19 Dec. 2012. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.

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